Wylfa

7th December 2018

Britain’s planned nuclear revival was thrown into fresh doubt yesterday after the company developing reactors on Anglesey warned it was still struggling to finance the project despite promised government support. Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate, is in talks with the UK government over its plans to build a new plant at Wylfa, which could power five million homes and is estimated to cost £15 billion. Ministers said this summer that they would consider investing directly in the project to get it off the ground. Despite this Hiroaki Nakanishi, Hitachi’s chairman, said that it was facing “an extremely severe situation”, according to Diamond, the Japanese business publication, which reported that the company intended to make a final judgment on whether to continue next year. Diamond reported that without further support from the Japanese government it seemed unlikely that the project would proceed, adding that Hitachi remained cautious. It said the company was unlikely to withdraw until after the end of the financial year in March because the huge writedown of its investment would hit its financial targets. Hitachi’s UK deal is one of the last hopes for Japan’s nuclear industry, which has been in crisis since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Clients have included Greenpeace, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, WWF Scotland and the UK Government’s Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.

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